It is known that firearm sound suppressors or “silencers” reduce or modify the amount of recoil or kickback and the sound level of a muzzle blast (caused by the discharge of pressurized burning gases from the firearm). However, in many conventional firearms such as auto-loading handguns, the barrel of the firearm must freely tilt to permit extraction and ejection of a projectile casing, thereby enabling the cycling of the action and automatic reloading of a new round into the firing chamber. Firearm sound suppressors for centerfire pistols typically add too much weight to the barrel to allow normal recoiling and tilting of the barrel to work the automatic reloading action. As a result, conventional firearm sound suppressors have included recoil boosters (hereinafter “boosters”) that increase the amount of recoil acting on the barrel of the firearm by temporarily decoupling the weight of the sound suppressor from the barrel.
One example of a prior booster is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,588,122 to Brittingham, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. This prior booster includes an elongate piston threadably coupled to a firearm barrel and a housing coupled with a sound suppressor and disposed coaxially about the piston. The piston includes a head portion with a plurality of spokes about a periphery, the spokes configured to slide closely along the inner periphery of the housing and abut an end wall of the housing in a rest or nominal state of the booster. A spring disposed around the piston biases the head portion into abutting engagement with the forward end wall of the housing in the nominal state. In operation, the pressurized gases released during discharge of the firearm would force the sound suppressor and the housing forward such that the piston head slides relatively rearward along the inner periphery of the housing against the bias of the spring, thereby temporarily decoupling the weight of the sound suppressor from the firearm barrel.
When the prior booster is to be disassembled for cleaning or for changing to a new piston, the piston head and the corresponding spokes must be dragged along the entire length of the inner periphery of the housing in the booster. As the firearm is discharged numerous times, discharged powder and other particulate matter forms a soot-like deposit along various surfaces of the sound suppressor. The deposits may build up enough along the inner periphery of the housing such that sliding the piston head through the full length of the housing becomes difficult or impossible. Furthermore, the piston head is being pulled against the bias of the spring, which further increases the difficulty of disassembly, or, if the spring is removed, provides no assistance in removal of the piston.
Therefore, it would be desirable to improve the booster used in a firearm sound suppressor and address some of the problems with conventional boosters.